3. Chapter Three

Alice’s voice rang through the large house. I was standing in the middle of Edward’s room, missing him. Edward, Carlisle, and Esme had gone hunting for the day. I was spending something that was referred to as “girl time” with Alice. When she flitted to my side, I was so far gone, looking at the Neoclassicism music- 1870’s through 1930’s- I barely paid her any attention.

“Ok, I’m trying to distract you, but you’re making that incomprehensibly difficult.”

Oh, really? “Distraction” was this torture’s new alias? In the past five hours, I had tripped twelve times, fallen seven times, spilled apple juice on myself twice- in the same instance, and stumbled into…Rosalie. That was the worst. Though she didn’t seem to hate me as much anymore, her glares sometimes scared me.

I walked over to the large leather couch against the north wall and sat down. “Alice, if you haven’t noticed, I’m not the biggest fan of your distractions. Especially the ones that cause me physical pain.” Like the gymnastics, the tree climbing, the life-sized human doll… “Can’t we do something that normal people do?”

“Normal? Bella, you’re not exactly normal,” she said, smirking.

“Ha,” I stated flatly. “Well, at least I don’t go out every week to find a live, five hundred pound animal to suck the blood out of. Not exactly the dictionary definition…”

“Bella, if you haven’t noticed, the majority of the people you spend your time with do that, so you’re still the odd one here.”

I sighed. She had a point. “Yeah. You’re right.” Then, thinking about it, I became a little sad. “Even around the most unusual people I know, I’m still the freak.”

My face must have been pretty pitiful, because Alice’s face turned compassionate quickly. “No,” she said soothingly. “You just fit in somewhere other than what’s expected.”

I thought about that. Suddenly I liked where this conversation was headed.

“Alice, we should-”

She did not. “-I’m not allowed to have that discussion with you.”

“But, Alice,” I whimpered. “You said yourse-”

“-Bella. I’m really not allowed to. Please, for the sake of my wardrobe.” Her eyes unfocused and refocused a second later. “If you could see the note he’d leave next to my burning Jimmy Choos, you would understand.”

Of course Alice would be concerned about her shoe collection depleting. But I wanted to talk seriously, about more pressing matters.

“Alice…how will he ever know? He can’t hear me and you can just translate Homer’s Odyssey into Latin when he’s around. I just can’t understand why he’s so against it.”

She gave in. “Fine. From what I know of Edward, it’s because he doesn’t want you to have to give anything up for him.”

“But it’s not just for him!” Then I couldn’t stop the flow. “This is what I want! I need to be with him forever! And…and, I can’t get old!”

“It’s really not my place…”

“We could make it your place. He’s gone. You could do it right-”

“Woah! And that’s where we stop! How am I supposed to not think you just asked me that?”

Before I could answer, another voice drifted into the room. “I’ll do it.”

Our heads whipped around to see Emmett standing in the frame of the door.

“Emmett!” I screamed. “How long have you been listening?”

“Hearing of a bat, remember? I could hear you two from downstairs. Interesting conversation…” he smiled devilishly.

“So the rumors are true?” I spat back at him.

“Touché, Bella.”

“Ok, guys!” Alice interrupted our scowls- well, my scowl and Emmett’s wide grin. “Emmett, if you tell him, you’ll be paying me off for the next…sixty years! And some of those shoes are one-of-a-kinds! Irreplaceable!”

I looked at her wondrously. Then I turned to Emmett. “Please, Emmett,” I pleaded. “Please, don’t say anything about it around him. He’ll be so mad at me.”

“And me,” Alice chimed.

“And Alice.”

“Yeah, he will,” he laughed. “Ok, though. Seriously,” he attempted to straighten out his face, to no advance. “I won’t tell him anything. But it’s so weird. It’s like he knows. I don’t even have to say anything and its like- Like he can read minds!” His laughter boomed.

He considered it. “I can see what I can do. You know what might help?”

Alice and I answered him together. “What do you want?”

He smiled. “There’s a sixty inch plasma TV. Only available in Korea.”

“It’s yours,” Alice responded.

“That’s what I like to hear. Thanks, guys,” he turned to walk out, but stopped. “If you want to talk about anything else you want to keep from Edward while I’m here, the Jeep could use a new lift and suspension kit.”

“Out,” Alice demanded.

He walked back out. Then peeked back in. “You sure?”

Alice took a throw pillow off the couch and threw it at him with blinding speed. He caught in just as fast and threw it out the open window. I turned my head in enough time to see it land in the river outside the house.

When we heard the volume go up on the television downstairs, we started talking again.